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BBC Trending: Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?

"I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life… all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee."

The image and caption were posted by a right-wing Japanese artist last month. Now, more than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in Japanese urging Facebook to take it down. The petition, posted by an account calling itself the "Don't Allow Racism Group", claims that several people have reported the illustration and demands that "Facebook must recognize an illustration insulting Syrian refugees as racism."

Although the Japan Times reported that Facebook did not take the picture down, saying it did not go against community guidelines, the artist herself removed the picture. But she remains defiant about her motivations for posting it in the first place. Toshiko Hasumi told BBC Trending that she believed the people signing the petition were left-wing activists. "I draw many political mangas [Japanese comics] which are not favourable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."

The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison: Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels

Another fun piece written by Barrett Brown from federal prison, this time about Purity.

Here are some older articles along similar lines.

This is a reposted submission with editing.

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Anonymous Coward-28 writes:

Incomplete list.

Overlord. (13 episodes) Too short. Ending yelled "our production budget is too small". Really, felt like an advertisement to learn WRITTEN japanese, and buy the raw manga from amazon.co.jp; to find out what happens next.

Chaos Dragon. (12 episodes) Beautifully dark; at least for the first few episodes. The "happily ever after" ending felt tasteless and disgusting. Doesn't anybody know how to write a good tragedy anymore ?

Normally, I wouldn't submit trash like this; but the queue's empty, so . . .

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AniChart Summer 2015 anime

LiveChart Summer 2015 anime

Original Submission

• A London Cereal Café Was Attacked by an Anti-Gentrification Group Called 'Fuck Parade'
• The hipster Cereal Killer Cafe owners aren't the East End's real enemy
• Cereal Killer protest: police investigate threats against cafe owners
• Cereal cafe defended by Boris Johnson after gentrification demo

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34358380

Los Angeles police said Majed Abdulaziz al-Saud, 28, was arrested on Wednesday and released the following day after posting a $300,000 (£197,000) bond. He is scheduled to appear in court on October 19 to face a charge of "forced oral copulation". Al-Saud does not have diplomatic immunity, police said.

Well, it's been over a year now since my wife and I decided to open our marriage, so I think it's time for a quick update.

Things between my wife and I are better than ever. Dating other people has just made me realize what I love so much about my wife. We are good. We are still trying to make a baby. No successes there, yet.

My wife has been wearing braces for the last year to fix her teeth. Her teeth weren't too bad to begin with, but they were crowded and causing gum problems, so we needed to get that fixed. My wife hasn't been as active in trying to find new partners, and I think that a big reason for that was that her braces made her feel self conscious. Now that they are coming off (and I'm really excited to see how beautiful she looks now!) I'm hoping that she will actively start looking for dates.

I think that if/when my wife starts dating it will be a little tough for me to see all the attention that she will get, while for me, it feels like a struggle to get even a reply on a dating site. I'm sure she will be flooded with messages, and it will be a little disparaging to see exactly what my competition is. Up until this point, I've been able to live in an ignorant bliss. I have a feeling that seeing exactly how much attention women get will be a little disheartening.

That being said, I really am excited by the thought of my wife going on a date. I've really enjoyed myself on dates, even when things don't work out, so I'm excited for her to have that chance too. I'm excited that once she is in the scene, we can start going to events together, and really start growing our poly social circle, and that might help me get dates. We'll see...

As for poly itself, after doing it for a year, it no longer seems so taboo or strange. It seems really... normal. I find it hard to keep it a secret from co workers. I've almost let it slip on numerous occasions. A lot of plot lines in stories don't make sense... "Why do you have to choose which one you love! You obviously love them both!" The knowledge of being able to have loves enter and leave your life is really a freeing feeling, and after a year, I really don't think I could go back to a normal monogamous relationship.

I like stats, and after year, it seems like a good time to post some, so here we go:
# of dates: 10
# of women: 4
# kissed: 3
Most # of dates with one woman: 4
# of titties suckled: 2
# I had sex with: 0
$ spent on dates: $400-$500 (total, that's a best guess)
# of times the woman picked up the tab: 2 (same girl, but on different occasions)
# of bouquets of flowers bought for wife because I felt guilty: 2
# of women that I actually felt an actual connection with: 1

I had realized pretty early on that finding the right person might take some time... Maybe years. It's really looking like that might be the case. In the mean time, I'm enjoying the journey, even if it is a little slower than I had originally hoped.

--Snow

So, it's been about nine months of Experiment and here's a metric I randomly checked today for you:

First Time Mod Bans Given Out: 13
Second Time Mod Bans Given Out: 0

That's less than two a month with a registered user base of 5875 (~90% of you are apparently committed to remain AC last I checked). This means, by in large, nobody is abusing the Spam moderation or mod-bombing. Cheers for that, folks. None of us on staff like to hand them out, even when they're unquestionably warranted.

http://www.cnn.com/ (right on the front page, no Fox BS)
Or an audio stream.

Starts at 5:10 PM PT, 8:10 PM ET.

Wikipedia:

The undercard broadcast took place at 3 PM PDT, while the main card broadcast will occur at 5 PM PDT. The candidates in the main debate are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, and John Kasich. The candidates in the undercard debate are Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, Rick Santorum, and George Pataki. Rick Perry suspended his campaign on September 11, effectively ending his candidacy. The two-tiered CNN broadcasts will be consecutive, with the primetime debate planned to immediately follow the second-tier broadcast. The moderator is Jake Tapper of CNN, with side-by-side participation by Hugh Hewitt of Salem Radio.

Other stuff:

• NYT live coverage
• PolitiFact
• Republican Party presidential debates, 2016
• Twitter live

Pushing To Attract Millennials, Taco Bell Will Offer Beer And Wine

[Image]

On Tuesday, Taco Bell announced it is launching a new concept that "redefines fast food experience." The first of these "experiences" will open in Chicago next week, and another one will follow later this month in San Francisco.

In a statement, the company says:

"Taco Bell Cantina restaurants will be the first and only Taco Bell restaurants to serve alcohol to customers who are of legal drinking age. The San Francisco restaurant will serve beer and wine only, while Wicker Park will serve, beer, wine, sangria and twisted Freezes. Cantina restaurants will also feature a new tapas-style menu of sharable appetizers — including nachos and rolled tacos — during designated hours each evening, in addition to the standard Taco Bell Menu."

These new cantinas won't have drive-throughs and will have open kitchens, according to a press release. They will also have digital menu boards, television monitors and an option for customers to use a mobile app to order and pay for their food.

[...] As USA Today reports:

"The company knows that its Millennial customers increasingly are attracted to urban areas, where real estate is pricey. Company officials think that selling a stiffer drink might pad the receipts — the typical Taco Bell receipt is in the $7 range — and in turn help make their urbanization push more doable.

" 'To put in a drive-thru you need land,' Neil Borkan, the Taco Bell franchisee who will operate the Chicago test location, told USA TODAY. 'Can you imagine buying an acre of land in a neighborhood like [Chicago's] Wicker Park? You couldn't afford it. As real estate becomes more and more expensive, this kind of concept makes more sense.'

"Taco Bell is treading carefully into booze. While quick-service rival Starbucks recently announced it would accelerate its push of its beer and wine program and has applied for liquor licenses for hundreds of stores across the USA in recent months, Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch said the company could potentially open 10 locations selling hard drinks next year."

The day I met Rio’s favela master: the drug lord who championed the poor: Misha Glenny tells of his prison meetings with Nem of Rocinha, the slum crime boss who channelled some of his cocaine profits into running a welfare state for 100,000 people

After his arrest, I wrote to Nem in prison and asked if he would speak to me. He agreed. The story that emerged was fascinating: once he reached the top, Nem was, in effect, mayor, police chief and director of the chamber of commerce for a community estimated at 100,000 residents. With the receipts from the cocaine trade, he ran a business that supported nearly 1,000 people. He also channelled some of his profits into a basic welfare state. He could do this because he paid close attention to accounting and budgetary matters.

“The food baskets and the support we gave to extracurricular school activities, such as the Thai boxing or capoeira classes, were all accounted for as part of our business expenses,” he explained. “But the burials, prescription costs or if anyone who couldn’t afford it needed gas, these were all extra payments.”

In the absence of any regular police, law was maintained by 150 armed men, most in their teens and early 20s. But while the man known locally as Mestre, or master, decided over life or death, he usually opted for the former. Under his rule, homicide rates dropped by more than two-thirds.

This was part-calculation, part-intuition. Rocinha was so profitable for the cocaine trade because it is surrounded by the three richest areas of Rio – Leblon, São Conrado and Gávea. By turning Rocinha into the safest and most attractive favela in Rio, business boomed. “He was not a man of violence,” said Detective Bárbara Lomba, who led the three-strong team that patiently investigated the Rocinha drugs operation for four years. “He had a policy of avoiding confrontation wherever possible and of not facing down the police. Rather the opposite, he was in contact with them in a corrupt relationship.”

Nem’s policy paid off. Rocinha became a fixture on the tourist route; Brazil’s biggest pop stars such as Ivete Sangalo and Claudia Leitte were happy to include the favela on their tours, boosting their popularity with Brazil’s poor. Politicians including former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the current incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, were keen to tour, as were members of Brazil’s national football side. Above all, the youngsters from the surrounding middle class areas went to buy coke.

Beltrame knew that he would have to “pacify” Rocinha because of its symbolic power and its location. As the World Cup and the Olympics approached the pressure grew. But by taking Nem out of the equation, Rocinha’s character has changed. The relationship between the police and residents is uneasy at best. In July 2013, a group which included the chief of Rocinha police murdered an innocent bricklayer, and the favela came close to open insurrection.

Since then the drug cartel has been edging its way back and there are sporadic shootouts with the police. Homicides remain at historic low levels but domestic violence, rape, assault and burglary have increased fourfold.